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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099313">Pint of Guinness for the Road</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicionly/pseuds/epicionly'>epicionly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Ambiguous Relationships, Banter, But Ending has notes, Canon Universe, Details Made Up, Gen, Merlin Is So Done (Kingsman), Not Kingsman: The Golden Circle Compliant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 04:15:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099313</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicionly/pseuds/epicionly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the legends, Galahad chose when he died. Merlin has always thought that immensely selfish.</p><p>(In which Merlin draws witness to the rise and fall of two generations of Kingsman's Galahad.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Merlin &amp; Eggsy Unwin, Merlin &amp; Harry Hart, One-sided Harry Hart/Lee Unwin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pint of Guinness for the Road</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written back in 2015, and technically incomplete but I've put notes so you technically know what was supposed to be there. I'd like to one day come back to filling in the holes (so open to any thoughts!), and I think people will still enjoy this even if it isn't.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>old soldiers never die, they just fade away. --<em>general douglas macarthur</em></p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kingsman is nothing better than a gentleman’s club. Full of stuffed up individuals with their pompous disregard. The chosen ones of the rich old men trying to protect the gentleman way while their sons and heirs lay rotting six feet under and in various parts of the world.</p><p>There are two empty spots for Kingsman agents the year of 1990. The former Galahad is stabbed in nine directions with fencing swords because he purposefully chose to instead of giving up the secrets of his mission. The former Merlin is living on his last kegs and knows nothing about technology, only knows about the outdated idea of spies and fancy gadgets, and needs to find a successor. Harry is thirty, and Merlin is twenty-seven, and they are on two different training tracks while distinguished rich gentlemen splutter around them trying to outdo each other with their achievements and fancy cufflinks.</p><p>In a few years’ time, the Internet will revolutionize the world, and within a few decades, digital technology will be irreplaceable and an indispensable part of Kingsman missions. But for now, the older generation isn’t changing its stance on how carefully kept record books and unnecessary over-reliance on a network of agents for information to be passed by post and telephone.</p><p>The thirty-something-year-old Galahad recruit candidates flock and flurry everywhere, making general nuisances of each other as they go through Merlin candidates trying to find the perfect handler for their assignments. They are also irritating Merlin, but that is the least of his worries.</p><p> “You know you needn’t bother wearing the glasses with two black eyes,” Merlin remarks to one, tired of people skimming for a nametag that Merlin refuses to wear, tired of this entire joke of a handler-agent assignment. He’s lived nine different identities while on the run and had the Bond romance of two. He doesn’t have time for judgments. “I think that defeats the point.”</p><p>HART, H., his head with a full amount of hair, raises an eyebrow, then scrutinizes Merlin’s thinning one. “For someone who is the youngest candidate here, you have a tongue as remarkable as your balding spot.”</p><p>Merlin candidates are self-righteous pricks, and the Galahad ones don’t do much better, so they choose each other.</p><p>It’s good they do. As it turns out, Kingsman tradition can’t stand Harry Hart, and Merlin just barely can.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Merlin starts getting less flack about how he chooses to submit his reports when it becomes clear to the rest of the Galahad candidates why their Merlin candidates are a bit younger, but it doesn’t really quite help how Harry seems to find what he does inexplicably extraordinary, because he’s a right wanker about it all.</p><p>“What’s your name?”</p><p>“Merlin,” Merlin says, and he can see Harry on the other side of the recruits table with the most successful poker face known to man. <em>Prat.</em></p><p>The other candidate doesn’t seem to have gotten the clue. “No, I mean, your <em>real</em> name.”</p><p>"Jack."</p><p> “Jack? You?” Harry asks, amused, about Merlin’s newest identity as he looks through Merlin’s wallet. How he got it out of Merlin’s assigned security vault in the base, Merlin doesn’t to care anymore, mostly because he’s angrily jabbing at the keyboard. “Like Jack and Jill? Jack the Ripper? Jack Black?”</p><p>“You know what you can do?” Merlin tells him, flipping through his papers, trying to figure out what will need to be changed. “You can sod off.”</p><p>“Don’t be a stuffed up twit,” Harry says warmly, charmingly. “Why not try Lewis? That has a better ring to it. Suits you.”</p><p>Merlin types in LEWIS. “I suppose you’ll want to be Clarke. Travel the world with while nagging in my ear about how things should go.”</p><p>“Oh no,” Harry says, smiling. He presses his fingers together in a steeple. Merlin wonders if he poses in front of a mirror to see what it looks like—it wouldn’t surprise him if he did. “I rather like Dick Smalley. Shows me you're rather fun.”</p><p>Merlin gave it to him because he thought it’d deter him. Clearly it didn’t work.</p><p>“Do you happen to prefer my company, or is it because you can’t find anyone else willing to spend it with you?” Merlin slides his fingers over the keyboard and selects print. The computers are decent, miles ahead of what’s released on the market. “Done.”</p><p>Harry looks half-intrigued and half-fascinated as the reports come out from the printer. “I still don’t understand why they need bother for a three-year stint for you Merlins.”</p><p>“They don’t,” Merlin says. “They need to get your lot used to us. Without three years to adapt, the gap’s enormous.”</p><p>“My lot,” Harry repeats, instead of the other thing, and his smile grows wider. He doesn’t explain himself, which is what bothers Merlin, but he’s Harry. His reputation says he’ll play nice in the office but be a menace in the field.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>In the middle of the undercover stakeout, Harry confesses that he had, on the recommendation of a friend, looked into joining the military once.</p><p>“What stopped you?” Merlin asks him, expecting something poignant, reflective. Or boorish.</p><p>Harry says, “I wasn’t particularly fond of getting my hair shorn.”</p><p>Merlin snorts from his vantage point on one of the roofs. Until Kingsman develops something a bit more convenient for the Merlin agent, this’ll have to do.</p><p>“Go bald,” Merlin tells him, and, looking through the binoculars: “Three o’clock, on your left. If you make a quick turn around the corner, you can shado—”</p><p>Harry opens up his umbrella and shoots the traitor square on in the middle of his forehead. It’s a brilliant shot that speaks of the high marks he got in weaponry and marksmanship, but hits some of the cables and lights into chaos as well.</p><p>Merlin watches in horror as the entire street goes up in flames.</p><p>“Would you be a dear and pick up the target, then?” Harry asks, keeping the umbrella open blocking the gunshots with precise ease, even as the hired bodyguards surround him. “I’m a bit occupied. Not too good at multitasking yet, I’m afraid.”</p><p>"Fuck you," Merlin shouts as he hauls himself down from his perch.</p><p>They don’t get back to base until all thirty of the men are dead and all ten witnesses darted.</p><p>Harry lazes around with a succinct, but useless scribbled comment on how the mission went, while Merlin completes the rest of the report, as Merlin agents are wont to do.</p><p>Merlin hates him, but resigns himself to picking up after his messes.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Percival, who recommended Merlin to predecessor Merlin for Kingsman in the first place, thinks their working relationship is interesting and tells Merlin so after his debriefing. Merlin thinks, <em>God’s sake, not another one</em>,<em> who thinks he can set me up just because I fancy men,</em> but says, “Hart’s a good shot, I suppose.”</p><p>Harry <em>is</em> a good shot, but he’s a little shit too and makes a good mess out of things because he doesn’t like blending in. He also does what he wants, something Merlin wants to have stamped out soon. But Percival’s words still keep in Merlin’s head, and somehow in a train of post-first joint assignment pub drinking, they get involved. Not spectacularly involved, just involved. Involved in each other’s lives a little bit more.</p><p>Merlin doesn’t quite understand it either.</p><p>“Did you use to work for a tailor somewhere?” Merlin asks, half-distracted, when he slips off Harry’s glasses because the degrees on this is dreadfully worse than Merlin’s own, and tries to find his own pair. His head is throbbing, and Harry is giving him a migraine.</p><p>Merlin candidates get the benefit of a small room instead of a bunker like the Galahad ones, but Merlin has a sneaking suspicion Harry is trying to move himself right in.</p><p>“I would’ve expected it to be required curriculum,” Harry replies offhandedly, busying himself with hurrying back and forth in the room, once for the half-length mirror, another to check the closet. “I don’t wonder why, with you like wearing something so…” He tsks. “You have dreadfully awful taste.”</p><p>“You say it, but you’ll wear my things.” Merlin says, having found his glasses and puts them on. “Rather than be seen returning to your bunker in less than perfect condition.”</p><p>“Bloody right I will,” Harry replies, ignoring the judgment on the design. Man knows he’s somewhat only slightly vain as hell. “It’s not vain, Merlin. It’s called being more obscenely well-dressed than the average gentleman. A Kingsman agent should always represent themselves to the best degree.”</p><p>“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Merlin says, watching Harry throw out half of his sweaters, “so I don’t have to muster the energy to throw you out.”</p><p>“I wasn’t aware that anyone could take it as anything but, but you astound me yet again.”</p><p><em>You two are a very good match,</em> Percival had said.</p><p>Merlin pinches the bridge of his nose, and then gets up to get some water.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>The day Merlin decides, “Sod it,” and shaves his head—and furthermore frees him from the conflicts he’s always had about his own hair—is the day he achieves complete liberty. It is also, in fact, the best decision he’s ever made. Once it’s gone, he just doesn’t care anymore. He just has to keep shaving it, which is a remarkably less emotional crushing experience, and he becomes quite self-satisfied in his own skin.</p><p>Harry remarks briefly that it makes him look smarter, and then turns around to nitpick at Merlin’s latest identity cards for them. It’s so routine that Merlin isn’t bothered by it as much anymore.</p><p>Of course, other things he is, but those things are another story that come hand in hand.</p><p>“Roy,” Harry mouths only slightly, incredulously from the other side of the table. “Roy is a terrible name. Change it.”</p><p>“Should I go back to Lewis, then?”</p><p>“Yes. Absolutely.”</p><p>“And what about you, Himbag Humbersnoff good enough for you?”</p><p>Harry laughs. “It’s brilliant, I’ll make it work.”</p><p>“What direspect.”</p><p>“I never respected you any less,” Harry says, sounding affronted, and that’s when Merlin realizes that this is how Harry makes his friends.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>--</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>They both end up finishing their training and becoming Kingsman agents in 1993. Merlin wears a bespoke suit for the ceremony and then changes into a white shirt with a tie and his beloved sweaters, and Harry—now Galahad—bemoans it.</p><p>“A waist, Merlin,” he tells him. "You had a waist!"</p><p>“Perfectly comfortable to send you to Antarctica next, Galahad,” Merlin replies, mood surprisingly light.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Lancelot is KIA in 1994. So that very year comes the first year that Galahad recommends a recruit for the candidacy, and Merlin oversees the selection process for the first time, and in doing so, overhauls the entire system. In reality, it's more to put the entire focus of teamwork into Kingsman. If there's another one like Galahad, who has absolutely gone mad with power if his damage reports are anything to go by, Merlin will rip his eyebrows out since he hasn't got hair.</p><p>Arthur is a right git about it, getting into Merlin's space and hovering. At every junction of the test, he's in the corner just weaseling what he considers the best of the lot himself, giving his favourites advice behind the scenes.</p><p>He stops criticizing Merlin's selection plans and lessons when Merlin points out that the former Galahad was caught without knowing how to work with the field, and if he doesn't want to stop his ridiculous and outdated notions about what Kingsman was that doesn't belong to a Bond film, then Merlin is going to quit.</p><p>"Can you get away with talking to him like that?" asks one of Merlin's interns, wide-eyed, as Arthur storms off.</p><p>"I developed one of the first Internet networks in a barn before the military came up with them," Merlin says snappishly. "What do you think?"</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Merlin, who lived in a small town right next to a minister who also owned a radio broadcast tower for Sunday sermons, frequented the station and the library growing up. He absorbed the news and knew everything like the back of his hand, and when he was old enough, he played games with technology and the law alike to liven up the boredom. He moved around a lot and small town became multiple towns.</p><p>On that day, when Merlin was twenty-seven, the then-Merlin of Kingsman sent two policemen and one member of the Scouting division ahead of him. When Merlin was climbing out of the barn, a man stood there in a pressed pinstripe suit and tipped his hat to him. Beside him was Percival, who later would eternally lord Merlin's debt to him.</p><p>“We need someone like you,” the man had said. “The pay’ll be round a few lifetime’s handsome earnings, all in exchange for four decades of devoted, questionably patriotic but better dressed hard work.”</p><p>He called himself Merlin and he wanted Merlin on the tryouts for his successor.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>At the time, Merlin had a whirlwind of identities. Never been one person. He'd lived nine other identities long before Kingsman had ever caught up to him, played the roles he’d needed to by observing and tailoring himself accordingly. It helped, with no siblings and a mother who had moved abroad. Specifically, being left with his grandmother as a child left a margin of freedom accompanied by strict daily routine, traditional values, and specific ideas on how productivity and money worked.</p><p>Particular attachment to whatever he needs to be at the time, excluding an endearing sense of sass, is what kept Merlin alive. What had made him an asset to Kingsman instead of a threat to M16.</p><p>Arthur said it’d been because taken interest in him because he’d gotten into one of the private military protocol networks, but Merlin suspected it had more to do with the fact that Chester King had absolutely no idea how technology actually worked. The Internet was a fairly new thing at the time.</p><p>In all hindsight, for Merlin, it had made no difference to him who he worked for as long as he was getting paid for it and not hunted down.</p><p>These days, Merlin wishes he’d studied up before he’d said yes, because all the agents are ungrateful menaces and Galahad is the worst of them. </p><p>And then Galahad decides to introduce Lee Unwin as a viable candidate.</p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>It’s not his abilities that are the issue: Unwin is certainly qualified. It’s somewhat his background that’s outside the norm: He’s from south side of London, not one of his family ever went onto post-secondary education or even made it that far. He dropped out as early  as he could and entered the Marines.</p><p>Even as he says this in his introduction, his eyes are fierce.</p><p>Merlin honestly doesn’t care about where the candidates come from so long as they can prove themselves. In fact, he thinks it’s a good sign. However, there’s something about military-bred soldiers that will never agree with Merlin. Entirely an objective conclusion, nothing particularly personal. Perhaps it’s how Unwin stands at attention, or the chip on his shoulder he carries about perceived slightsabout his origins.</p><p>Merlin says, “We’ll see where you all go from here,” and Unwin holds his head up high.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“Sir,” Unwin says, “look, if you think—”</p><p>And no, Merlin will not stand to be railed by a twenty-five-year-old recruit who barks like everyone is his enemy. He reminds Merlin of Harry in younger years; making things into fights in order to make them worthy and prove himself.</p><p>“No,” Merlin says, “you’re not shouting in my ear. If you have a problem, you whisper it to me. At the most, you’re polite enough to write a letter.”</p><p>Unwin blinks, a little taken aback. But then he smiles, wide and toothy, very unlike Harry.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Once Merlin makes it clear there’s no place for me-against-the-world in Kingsman and he enforces it, Unwin demonstrates an extreme willingness to learn and make good on the chance. As if all he needed was that.</p><p>He’s determined, adapts fast, amiable and friendly, and a hard-hitter where it counts. He’s got military training, which explains his scores in weaponry and stealth, and he’s a natural at Honeypots because he’s instinctively interested in people.</p><p>Merlin appreciates this, as he is beginning to tire of HQ personnel requesting permission to push half of the recruits over a cliff for their self-serving attitudes.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>The days pass. Merlin revisits his original stance.</p><p>Merlin is not a believer in charity cases. He is a Kingsman agent; more specifically, a Kingsman agent handler, and his empathy does not extend so far as to second chances or special favours where trainees’ origins are concerned. He does not do favouritism, nor does he tolerate recruits making friendly with him until they’ve earned the right.</p><p>Lee Unwin is a special case, as far as he is concerned.</p><p>Lee, as it seems, worms his way into the hearts of two Kingsman agents without trying, with stories of his son that Merlin could usually care less about were it not for the nickname, the fact that Lee is a good man, and that Harry Hart might be in bloody love with a man twelve years his junior.</p><p>“Eggsy,” Merlin repeats. Out of the corner of his eye, Galahad’s expression is nothing but pure fondness.</p><p>“Eggsy,” Lee says, proudly, looking stupidly happy as he grins down at the photo. Times like these, Merlin wonders what Galahad is thinking, bringing a family man into Kingsman. “It’s because he likes Kinder Eggs,” Lee adds, like he’s telling a secret. “I sneak him some when Michelle isn’t looking.”</p><p>There’s a semblance of normality, of open-hearted and honesty with Lee—something Kingsman doesn’t often get these days.</p><p>The only problem that Merlin can point out, really, is that Lee is a father. Lee has a family. Lee is infallible, just like any other man, but he has a wife and a son whose photos he keeps in his wallet and he stares at in the late nights in the bunkers, and they will suffer when he is gone.</p><p>And they do.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Lee’s passing is too soon and too abrupt to mourn. Too young.</p><p>It’s because they’re friends that Merlin doesn’t ask after Galahad’s sudden disappearance in the days following Lee’s death.</p><p>It’s also because they’re friends that it goes without saying that Merlin doesn’t ask when Galahad comes back and demands to be reassigned somewhere different for a while.</p><p>It’s close to seventeen years later when one of his agents calls him from her station to tell him that someone is using Galahad’s password. Her desk is a scattered mess that she doesn’t even bother clearing when he looks over her shoulder at the screen.</p><p>“Basic Get out of Jail Free card,” she’s saying, as Merlin stares at the name and the transcript of the conversation. “I’ve alerted Galahad and sent him the coordinates of the station and a copy of Gary Unwin’s file.”</p><p>“CC me whatever you’ve sent Galahad, and bring up a picture of Unwin,” he says, and she complies. He stands back, hand still on the back of her chair, staring at Lee’s eyes, green instead of brown, at the jawline, at the face, at the posture. “Christ.”</p><p>He’s not a dead ringer for Lee, but he’s close. Too close, Merlin thinks, and leaves Galahad a message asking him what he thinks he’s doing.</p><p>Less than a few hours later, Galahad replies, <em>It’s not for Lee.</em></p><p>The hell it isn’t.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Candidates these days are recommended to Arthur by the current Kingsman agents, and Arthur in turn sends the files to Merlin. The recommendation process has always been a highly selective, very narrowly margin, but the recruits this time are barely adults out of children.</p><p>“Didn’t you want to teach an entirely new generation a different way of Kingsman?” Arthur asks him.</p><p>Merlin is not getting paid enough to handle all the shite that comes with these Kingsman agents being twenty—five years younger than the last cycle of recruits. It’s a reflection of the times, he supposes.</p><p>“They’re too young,” he tells Elyan when she turns in her mission report. She’s always been one of the more sensible Kingsman agents.</p><p>“We need a Lancelot,” Elyan tells him firmly, and Merlin sighs.</p><p>Galahad just sends him Gary Unwin’s dossier last minute, as though expecting Merlin to bypass protocol.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>In the middle of Merlin's speech to the candidates, Gary "Eggsy" Unwin comes into the base wearing Adidas and a cap.</p><p>Merlin, for all that he wishes Galahad would clue him in on his thoughts, reserves his judgment.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Merlin takes care of dogs in his spare time. Takes in the ones from the pounds and puts them in good homes, shuts down puppy mills, buys extra dog food, and keeps treats in his pockets for whenever he comes across one of the wet-nosed pups on his HQ patrol. His office isn’t big, and he spends time there only on default because there's no point in going to sleep for a few hours only to realize how fairly incompetent (though they are much better trained after all these years) his crew can be without him.</p><p>As he stares down at a tiny pug, rescued along with his litter from a nest of ratty blankets and garbage beside a dumpster and his mother’s rotting corpse—Merlin wonders if he’s gone soft. But adds the little one to the recruits' dog adoptables list anyway.</p><p>Gary Unwin surprises him pleasantly when he picks him, but if he is Lee's son, Merlin supposed he shouldn't be.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Galahad is an old friend. This happens occasionally when two colleagues, in a line of work with low life expectancy, happen to work together extensively, and their friends are friends with each other. Merlin is not bothered by the concept of it, though he is on occasion forced to do extra work for it.</p><p>Though Merlin has lost count of the amount of times he has needed to pull for extraction because of Galahad's tendency for theatrics, rivaled only by the late Lancelot's, Galahad has otherwise become accustomed to a certain ritual of asking for favours that Merlin would not otherwise grant to anyone. Percival's talent for inoffensive frankness is rare, and Galahad doesn't possess a lick of it. Over the years, however, they've learned to read each other, understand boundaries, and Galahad has a remarkable sense of intuition of how much he can ask for and what he can't. Merlin is just glad he doesn't have to spell it out like he had to the former Lancelot.</p><p>As a rule of thumb, it’s easiest to tell when Galahad wants something when he starts sending in things that aren’t standard fare. However, when tech prototypes get mixed in with specific varieties of both English and foreign tea, and a signed complete series set of <em>Only Fools and Horses</em> gets tucked in the packages of Chinese herbal throat demulcents, that is when Merlin takes a sip of his new brew and sits back.</p><p>For a moment, he contemplates the steam rising in the air from his mug. Then, he leans forward and presses on the connection to Galahad’s line.</p><p>“He’s not Lee,” he says, to start. “But he’s similar. He doesn’t play well with most of his fellow recruits except Percival’s candidate. He’s astute. Good at making decisions in dangerous situations. Passed the first test. He picked a pug this morning and came in last in routine run, but he seems to like his dog and is settling in fine.”</p><p>Galahad isn’t speaking on the other end.</p><p>“I suppose you’ll want daily reports on his progress,” Merlin says, grudgingly, as he checks up what price the DVD set costs, and is irately disappointed that price does not seem to reflect the quality of the show.</p><p>“If it wouldn’t be trouble,” Galahad says politely, for someone who forged the signature on this box. Merlin grunts, and cuts the line.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p><em>“Did he really do that?”</em> Galahad asks.</p><p>“Why, do you want a clip of it?” Merlin asks. It’s meant to be a joke. A dig, of sorts. He plays it, just because if anyone accuses Merlin of not having the entire base bugged, he’s prepared for the eventuality. “Here.”</p><p>Full hilarious slow-mo of Gary Unwin running with JB tucked into his jumpsuit.</p><p>Instead of an equally sassy remark, Galahad doesn’t respond and the smirk drops from Merlin’s face.</p><p>“You’re serious,” he doesn’t say.</p><p>Galahad saves it to his glasses without a word, practically glowing with pride.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Galahad asks after Gary Unwin often, especially if he’s doing well after the recent case of food poisoning that put five recruits on bed rest and sent another two throwing up for the rest of the day. Merlin would not have pegged him for a concerned benefactor, but Galahad seems to be giving off that impression in spades. Likely determined to avoid repeating the past, Merlin thinks, and gets irritated enough to snap at him.</p><p>“Listen,” he says to him. “You might be somewhat unsure as to how I’m training them, never mind Gary Unwin, but I will let you know that—”</p><p>“Eggsy.”</p><p>Merlin stops. “What?”</p><p>“His name is Eggsy.” Galahad’s voice is prim, the way it gets when he’s being particularly stubborn about something. “He prefers that.”</p><p>“Right,” Merlin says. “Eggsy. And he couldn’t tell me this himself?” Merlin's grown up with the assumption that nicknames are for bed, the shit Galahad pulls, or the five-year-old boy Lee used to show pictures of all the time.</p><p>“He respects you,” Galahad replies impatiently.</p><p>"I don't see what that has to do with getting his mentor to tell me off," Merlin says flatly. "If he can have the hankering to go out for drinks with you, he can have a cuppa with me and say it to my face, that I've used a name he doesn't like." Is he more annoyed by the fact that Eggsy seems to prefer Galahad, when Lee liked Merlin more?</p><p>“You usually give off the impression you’ll eat them alive.”</p><p>“I do that for everyone I keep an eye on. Out.”</p><p>Galahad isn’t impressed with him.</p><p>Merlin would tell him to sod off, but really. He’s too annoyed for that now and takes an irritated sip of his tea.</p><p>Then he sends one of his aides out to buy the recruits some Kinder eggs. Bet Galahad hasn't thought of that yet, the arsepiece.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>There’s a lot of things data will tell you about someone. Card or cash. Cash is usually a result of paranoia or being frugal; not trusting a digital system, or just more convenient. Card is arrogance, and some other bullshit that Merlin really doesn't need to pay too much attention to. But there are some things that are part of Eggsy’s files that leave imagination untested.</p><p>Merlin notices this in the psyche tests: Eggsy possesses a certain brand of loyalty to people. Whether or not they have earned it is not a factor. He’s a protector, would work well with children on undercover missions. He sympathizes easily, but closes his heart on and off to get the job done.</p><p>He’ll do phenomenally in kidnapping or red-light district missions.</p><p>Merlin's not sure why he decides the honeypot one if it isn't revenge on Galahad, or the fact that some of the meddling Kingsmen agents are starting to bribe him with better Scotch because there's always a betting table. Maybe it's because he wonders if Eggsy would do the same as Lee.</p><p>It's still entertaining.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Surprisingly, it’s not Galahad’s candidate that Merlin needs to keep an eye on. In fact, it’s Arthur’s. It’s a sign of the disparity of values with which Merlin is distinctly unimpressed at the same time he is appalled. This candidate is too much like Arthur.</p><p><em>You recommend the ones who remind you of you</em>, Merlin thinks, as he updates the psyche report yet again. The latest bunker feed is irritating simply because Merlin is tired of opening the same bloody file over and over again to write variations of <em>If He Wasn’t A Git</em>.</p><p>This is half of why Kingsman’s screening process is so important. They’ll have to work with them for at least a decade, might as well be someone remotely tolerable. Merlin hopes by the end of the three years, if Arthur’s candidate lasts long enough, that attitude will see some sort of a one-eighty. He’ll pay a good solid amount of pounds just for even a ninety.</p><p>“He’s not being mean to Rufus is he?” Tristan asks, when he drops in. Kingsman agents are generally of the non-attached type, but some do get involved in the training process. Once you recommend someone, you’re in for the long haul. “That’s all I care about, at the end of the day. I’ll have to answer to his obscenely rich father if there’s been a hint of boarding school bullying.”</p><p>“Charlie's obscenely richer, and he’s Arthur’s carbon copy, so far be it from me to say,” Merlin intones, sipping his tea, and Tristan smiles even as Merlin continues, “He’s scoring well. I can see him finishing in the top three. Your Rufus, however, is struggling.”</p><p>“Great Wizard Merlin,” Tristan says, “Arthur isn’t here for you to kiss his arse.”</p><p>“Arthur still signs my paychecks,” Merlin says, instead of providing proof that Rufus is likely to get kicked if he doesn’t shape up, while Charlie has always been scoring consistently high. “And yours too, if I’m not mistaken.”</p><p>Tristan, the ever amiable romantic soul, sits on the edge of Merlin’s desk. “The man’s still the one administering the final test with you, is he? What’s to say he won’t pick his own?”</p><p>Merlin, though he is supposed to be impartial, would rather not have a classist prick taking up Lancelot’s mantle. “It won’t get that far,” he decides, at last. “What they’ve got in youth, they completely lack in common sense. Kingsman needs only the ones that can read between the lines.”</p><p>“Such as,” Tristan suggests, peering at the feed on the screen at Galahad’s candidate screaming at Arthur’s, “the fact that you are a lover of dogs and an advocate against animal cruelty. Ooh, come on. I love a good fist fight.”</p><p>Merlin doesn’t even deign to respond, beckoning Tristan’s Iseult over to give her a good scratch behind the ears. The German shepherd gives a bark, and nudges her head into his hand eagerly, sniffing at his pockets for treats.</p><p>Dogs, Merlin thinks. Why couldn’t Kingsman just be made of dogs?</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>By the third month, Eggsy is a regular at Merlin’s station.</p><p>“What’s this?” Eggsy asks, playing around with the Rubix cube, and generally not keeping his hands to himself.</p><p>Merlin gives him a sharp look, and steps forward into Eggsy space. Eggsy presses his lips close.</p><p>“Sorry,” he mutters, depositing it gracelessly back, and Merlin eyes him for a few until Eggsy breaks eye contact , and then Merlin settles back on to sit on his chair. When he had this char with Charlie, he learned that Charlie was an arse-kisser of the finest quality. As for Eggsy, he does a good job where his scores are concerned, but it’s his attitude towards his teammates that needs work.</p><p>Of course, that’s not why Merlin’s called him here. If the other Kingsman agents can’t handle this on their own, they’re not much of Kingsman agents.</p><p>“You need,” Merlin tells Eggsy, because all of them are young and fuck Merlin for missing the chaos that Galahad provides, “to realize we are training you for more than sabotaging your fellow colleagues."</p><p>Eggsy's jaw ticks as it clenches, stubborn. "Eye for an eye," he says.</p><p>"Under my eyes, you won't. But," Merlin takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, "moments like these are different when you have an alibi."</p><p>It takes a moment before Eggsy gets it. And then he grins, toothy, just like Lee did a long time ago. "Won't do it where you can see, then. Sir."</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“Your boy,” Merlin says, and takes a good long sip of his scotch-laced tea for good measure for all of the times Eggsy has made him even so much as remotely thankful he’s bald, “is a menace.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Harry says, the right amounts of half-flattered and half-amused. “It was a combined effort on our part.”</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Eggsy fails to shoot the dog.</p><p>He doesn't write <em>Too much like Lee</em>, and doesn't include <em>This is why we absolutely cannot make him</em> <em>Kingsman</em> in the report, because Galahad knows already that Merlin won't lose another self-scarificing agent due to a big heart.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>"Do I want to know?" Merlin asks.</p><p>"Yes, you want to," one of his agents tells him, and hands him the GPS. Arthur's personal car is being driven away, and irritated, Merlin wonders who was the idiot who left the keys in the ignition.</p><p>"Why I am not surprised," Merlin says hazardously, forbidding himself from feeling, and alerts Galahad.</p><p>Galahad, surprisingly, is mortified.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Things blur together because in the end, Merlin is reeling over the fact that Galahad went out of control and got <em>bloody shot in the face.</em></p><p>And.</p><p>And that's how it ends?</p><p>That's how it fucking ends?</p><p>In the legends, Galahad chose when he died. Merlin has always thought that immensely selfish.</p><p>Merlin leans back heavily, and removes his glasses. He stares up at the ceiling and wonders, wonders, wonders how this could be. But his hands are clammy and his chest squeezes, so he's not quite at all sure he can.</p><p>And the worst part of it all, is Merlin can't even retrieve the body, not with all those eyes.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>The new Lancelot handles well. The instant Eggsy Unwin walks in the day after Galahad is shot in the face in a church down in Kentucky, she has her gun on him.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Old friend does not equal privy to all that someone thinks, plans, or where they will go from there. It gives only an approximate understanding; on the other hand, Merlin is in the habit of making internalized psyche reports on everyone he encounters, so he understands Harry briefly.</p><p>Eggsy, as it stands, is nothing more than as much of a little shite as Harry is--was.</p><p>Specifically. That is why, Merlin knows absolutely fuck-all until Harry’s candidate brings him Arthur’s cell.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>They save the world, in the end.</p><p>Eggsy returns from his time with the princess, and Merlin drives the plane to the pick-up point to Lancelot's location.</p><p>They don't talk.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>"He assured you'd be needing a place," Merlin says, once all is said and done. Eggsy was quiet back on the plane ride, and Merlin knows when a man is trying to compartmentalize. "Here are the keys."</p><p>"For Harry's?" Eggsy asks, quiet, and the way he uses Galahad's name as though he has a right to it makes Merlin draw pause.</p><p>"No," Merlin says, carefully, at last. "Not Harry's."</p><p>A place Harry thought would be good for a family.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Eggsy inherits the Galahad title. Merlin wishes he hated this less.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Eggsy misses him, misses Harry. It's very easy to tell that. He's always been very easy to read, especially if you know the signs to look for. He wanders about a bit at the base during his check-ins, but he's grounded when he goes to visit his family. Dean comes in knocking once in a blue moon, but quickly is shown the door. It's good place, a ways from Harry's house, and Eggsy discovers that one day.</p><p>Merlin has no doubt that Eggsy knows exactly why he was never told, but Eggsy intuits very well, enters with three words: Oxfords, Not Brogues.</p><p>From there on, Merlin's access to the satellite is limited. He made a promise to Harry, once. It'd been when they were in their 30s, in the sole need to have some space of their own.</p><p>Harry'd been watched his entire life, and he wanted a place where he didn't have to be. Even Merlin hasn't been.</p><p>Merlin just isn't sure he has the heart to tell the boy about Harry. About the missing body, about what Harry told Merlin to leave behind for him, to make sure everything was taken care of.</p><p>He's sure, when Eggsy checks back into HQ and shows up on the monitors to knock on the door, that Eggsy's heart is big enough to tell Merlin.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Eggsy says, dawdling, not really moving right after dismissal. He’s used to Merlin being very sharp with him, but Merlin gets the feeling that he understands exactly where he’s coming from. “Harry didn’t say nothing ‘bout you two, but—”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>Eggsy flushes, and the colour goes from his face to his neck. “Well I mean, like.” He straightens up, tucks his chin out like a proper agent. “He didn’t say you two were involved, but. I figured you might be. I wanted to ask.”</p><p>Merlin just gives him a very testy look because he has absolutely no idea what this new Galahad wants from him.</p><p>“Could we exchange stories?” Eggsy blurts out. “About Harry. I want to talk about Harry.”</p><p>"If you have a problem with my professional relationships-"</p><p>"You saw Harry's feed too, yeah?"</p><p>"I did," Merlin says. And it's very difficult. Eggsy emotes obviously, and Merlin has never been one to show. But somehow in Eggsy's company--just like Lee's--he finds it so easy.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Eggsy visits very often. He talks to Merlin, he brings JB.</p><p>He’s a right annoyance, he is.</p><p>Just like Harry.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“When d’you find time to sleep, Merlin?”</p><p>“I don't.”</p><p>“Hah, that’s—” The expression dies down. “You don’t? You serious, mate?”</p><p>"Mm. This is the second decade I've been awake."</p><p>That's when Eggsy gets it. "You're taking the fucking piss! I trusted you!"</p><p>Merlin just lifts the cup to his lips and sips the tea. "Blame yourself for being too gullible."</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>"What was Harry like when he was younger?"</p><p>"I fortunately never had the displeasure, but I suspect I'd have gladly strangled him as a child."</p><p>"Kinda funny, that. Harry said lots of compliments about you."</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Merlin has been in this job for close to twenty-two years now, excluding the three he spent in recruit training.</p><p>Merlin hates Kingsman’s philosophy when it comes to agents. Not to say he doesn’t hate some choice parts of the rest of it, but shadowing to learn how to manage and overseeing agent selection is hardly ever one of his favourite bits of it.</p><p>Merlin doesn’t play favourites. He does, however, keep a careful eye on every recruit and person that have ever entered headquarters because he keeps internal psyche reports on everyone he meets. They help, because he hates people.</p><p>“Do you always analyze people like that?” Eggsy asks, looking up from Harry's file. The one full of years of spite and annoyance and anger and maybe of fondness if you squint sideways and drink a few. "Do <em>I</em> have one?"</p><p>Eggsy is loyal to Harry Hart, not Kingsman. Always has been. It's part of why he finds comfort in the fact that Merlin knows and has known Harry for longer.</p><p>Merlin nods over to the next page for Eggsy, keen to know if Eggsy is on his side or not for at least <em>something</em>. “Do you always ask obvious questions?"</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“Why didn’t you shoot the dog?” Merlin asks as he's overseeing Eggsy's post-flight itinerary. It's a long night, and Eggsy's used to it, but the long plane hours and the shifting timezone haven't done the boy any favours as he's stumbling with the keys to the safehouse.</p><p>What surprises him is that the answer is something Eggsy doesn’t think twice about. “You don’t hurt the ones you love,” Eggsy says, like it’s obvious. And then he blinks, somewhat subdued, into the night air where a cat meowed.</p><p>“Harry shot the dog,” Merlin answers.</p><p>“I know,” Eggsy says, and he hesitates. Steels himself, stubborn. “Still wouldn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>[[incomplete sections about the rise of Eggsy as Galahad:</p><p>-Eggsy being an asshole of Harry-degrees when he can (he's not unthoughtful, but he gets Merlin like....souvenirs? Well-intentioned. Merlin keeps them because of course he does.)</p><p>-Eggsy invoking Merlin's memory of Lee (they probably have long talks about family, about how Daisy is turning up)</p><p>-Roxy probably featuring at some point, some fun shenanigans wherever she and Eggsy are out on the field</p><p>-Eggsy just being a chill as dude who finds his way</p><p>-JB and Guinevere and the Kingsmen agents' dogs hanging around and essentially being spoiled</p><p> </p><p>etc]]</p><p>--</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“<em>Tell me mum and Daisy I love them both so much.”</em></p><p>The new Galahad doesn’t die like Harry Hart, shot in the face and the bullet grazed. He dies because he’s too bloody busy saving the world again, and forgets that solo missions usually don’t go well in large scale operations.</p><p><em>Lancelot will want to know</em>, is Merlin’s first thought, dizzy, as he looks at the view through Eggsy’s glasses, turned towards the door. “Galahad. Hold on.” A cup of tea is on the floor over spilled papers, and Merlin can’t look away, desperate. “An extraction team is coming. Hold on.”</p><p>“<em>I won’t make it.</em>”</p><p>“You’re being dramatic.”</p><p>“<em>Give Rox me body bag, Merlin. She’ll know what to do.</em>”</p><p>“Galahad, she’s coming in with the extraction team.” The view changes then, shaky, and then it turns to Eggsy’s face, smooth and young and exhausted and tired and dying.</p><p>Eggsy’s last words are a rasped, “2625.”</p><p>Then he winks.</p><p>That little sod.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>2625 reads ANAL and is Eggsy’s password. It’s laughably hackable and simple.</p><p> </p><p>[[incomplete:</p><p> </p><p>Haven't figured out how it ends, but two options:</p><p>1) Both Galahads being officially dead on paper (aka Harry survived, Eggsy faked his death because he knew Kingsman and Merlin wouldn't let him waste away on a 'fruitless' search)</p><p>2) Both are actually dead but in the safe is one last present from Harry to Merlin: a fucking toupee or something.]]</p>
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